October 3, 2014: Education News We're Reading This Week
In an effort to aid low-income students, The University of Chicago has revealed a plan to replace loans with grants and eliminate application fees. The Upshot’s David Leonhardt explains how, despite its less-than-stellar past in helping economically-diverse students, the university’s new proposition will greatly increase enrollment of and aid to this underserved group.
Find out more about Goucher College’s innovative application opportunity in this New York Times piece. The Baltimore area liberal arts college will accept one graded high school writing assignment and a two-minute video in place of a traditional transcript.
Hear from Indy Star about the “borrowing gap” that exists between white and black college graduates, which shows debt disproportionately burdening the latter. A collaborative survey showed that 50 percent of black graduates racked up more than $25,000 in loan debts, while the number for white graduates with the same amount was 34 percent.
“Among people from 25 to 35 years old, 16 percent now have lower qualifications than their parents,” states The New York Times via data from a Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report. In a time when equal access to higher education is a major concern, non-middle class students are still considered “have-nots” in the academic world.
Tomiko Brown-Nagin writes in New America that colleges must invest effort into giving aid to the right students, not just those who meet broad qualifications such as diversity. Her plea, rather, is to look to a different group: first-generation college students, those disadvantaged as pertains to education.
Excelsior President John Ebersole shares his five tips to improve community college completion rates in response to a report issued by the Center for Community College Student Engagement. ECampusNews’ Michael Sharnoff shares in detail.
Finally, check out where the Foundation and its scholars were featured this week:
- Graduate Scholar Elena Schlickenmaier – “JM Blattner Law Firm Welcomes Attorney Elena Schlickenmaier to Lead New Virginia Office“
- Graduate Scholar Lorina Naci – “New study shows some ‘vegetative patients are mentally active’“
- Grantee Belin-Blank Center – “Belin Blank Center receives grant“
- Undergraduate Transfer Scholar Jasmine Demaline – “Yavapai College Student Success Story“
- Young Artist Award winner Sterling Elliott – “Child Prodigy Sterling Elliott Headlines Colour of Music Festival“
- Young Scholar Kevin Lin – “Kevin Lin Announced as a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar“
- Young Scholar Natalie Bordeaux – “Learning Beyond Stereotypes“